Sources of good fat?

pumpkin seeds!!

avocados and chia / flax seeds are my favorite. Be sure to soak the seeds overnight for best nutrition absorption

Whoa whoa you wen't quote happy. Calm down Susan.

-.- I addressed specific things so you can see what my response is to something you said. This is to eliminate ambiguity. It's easier to understand what I say when you see what I'm specifically referring to.

I'm not demonizing anything, I cook with butter often and have no problem with lard. The point I was making is that as a complete package of food; which is going to give you more nutritional bang for your buck, an avocado or the caloric equivalent in butter?

How does it fit into the context of an entire diet and the dosage? Outside of knowing how it fits in, giving you an answer is meaningless if we take into consideration discretionary calorie allowance. Meaning, just because avocado is more nutritionally packed does not mean it's necessarily better within a context of a specific diet if: (A) the dosage is too small to make a difference, and/or (B) the diet before the consumption of avocado or butter has met or exceeded micronutrient requirements, and (C) How this factors across a period of time since your question does not tell me if this person is doing it everyday and in a specific context as this can change many things.

Nowhere did I say to cut saturated fats out completely, or to just eat salmon all day.

Nowhere did I say you did say that.

The point is balance, as with all micro or macro nutrient intakes. An intake of mono-unsatured fats and poly unsaturated fats will ALSO give you an intake of saturated fats...it's very hard to actually avoid saturated fats, however it is recommended to limit intake.

Balance?:
"A good mix of mono and poly unsaturated fats is better."

This quote does not suggest balance whatsoever. It suggest superiority of unsaturated fats over saturated fats.

Now to get gritty; the French Paradox was a study correlated consumption of fats in relation to heart disease. The general dietary habits in Franche contribute to this as well, not just fat consumption. The French diet tends to consist of a fairly on par consumption of both saturated and unsaturated fats, especially Omega-3 fatty acids (they consume 3 times as much fish as comparable european diets).

What you said:
"A good mix of mono and poly unsaturated fats is better."

You are implying a lot here and if you meant something else then you should change how you say it. If you meant balance then you shouldn't have said better since better implies superiority.

Anyways, I know that the context of an entire diet matters and one of the reasons we continually see correlation of red meat and saturated fat linked with a plethora of diseases is most likely because people who consume more saturated fat and red meat tend to live "unhealthier" lifestyles. I hate correlational studies more than the next guy but that wasn't my point.

My point with the French paradox is that if saturated fats were "bad" (or inferior to unsaturated or any negative connotations that go with saturated fat) then societies that have very high consumptions of it (higher than most of developed countries) should have poorer health since "bad" or "inferior" are negative and therefore we should see negative results regardless. You suggest that "a good of mono and poly ... is better." Saturated fats make up a larger portion of the French diet than many other places. Your suggestion then makes no sense when we examine the French or other European countries similar to the French since if it was truly better then these places should not be doing better from a cardiovascular standpoint.

But what do we see? Lifestyle matters (as you noted), which is why the French Paradox is no paradox at all. I agree that there should be some semblance of balance but there is more to health than just fats. There are other places that live quite long who have much different dietary profiles than the French yet live longer.